


Fragments

by flowerdeluce



Category: Russian Doll (TV 2019)
Genre: 300bpm Exchange, Canon-Typical Character Deaths, Explicit Language, Flashbacks, Gen, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 06:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20205418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerdeluce/pseuds/flowerdeluce
Summary: Nadia and Alan aren't letting the loop mess them around any longer. They're writing a list of possible escape methods and making their way through it.One of them's bound to work, right?





	Fragments

**Author's Note:**

  * For [radchaai (rigormorphis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rigormorphis/gifts).

> Tonnes of thanks to asuralucier for your beta and Ameri-picking skills. (And for your time, your encouragement, and everything else! You're a star.)

They’re starting to realize that trying to find the bug in this purgatorial practical joke is useless. Alan calls it a waste of time. He’s right, of course, because what is this loop if not exactly that? It’s more like recycled time though, which is eco-friendlier at least, but either way, nothing they do seems to matter, and Nadia can’t cope with being that out of control.

Nadia proposes they make a list. Every possible way out gets discussed and, if it seems even the slightest bit logical, it goes on said list for them to try. Alan has neater handwriting, so he’s tasked with writing it; Nadia will keep hold of the paper copy. It’s shared responsibility.

“I’ll have to rewrite this every time we die you know?” Alan says, in the process of memorizing it.

Nadia smiles weakly around her cigarette. “I thought you liked routine.” She looks at Oatmeal’s empty basket to avoid looking at him.

She wants to be optimistic, to feel like they’re onto something. She so desperately wants to.

*

Nadia bursts through the doors of La Monde the moment they open for breakfast.

Ordering a coffee, she sits, hands in her pockets, and stares across the empty restaurant at the table by the window. John and Lucy will sit there for pancakes in—she checks her phone—just under three hours. If she’s here this early, she can’t chicken out or say she didn’t try righting her wrongs, the first item on the list.

A blonde waitress tops up Nadia’s coffee for over an hour until she whips a notebook and half-pencil from her apron with enough force to give the air a paper cut. Her expectant glare makes Nadia feel like she’s being booked by a cop, so she orders the first listing on the breakfast menu—avocado on toast, fucking hipsters—to get her to leave her alone.

About two hours in, a tourist wheeling a suitcase sits at John’s table. Nadia taps her fingers on the tabletop, slides the shiny salt shaker from one hand to another, her toast long cold. The waitress looks like she wants to choke her.

John’s taxi pulls up outside right on time and, nuh-uh, she’s out.

In the ladies’, a stupidly ornate mirror above a sink recessed into pink marble mocks her. It shows Nadia in its frame, alone and afraid. Out of place. Lucy will expect her to be . . . something. Something worth her dad only seeing her Mondays and Fridays. Something scraping just close enough to maternal that Nadia can’t stand the mere suggestion of it.

She washes her hands to have something to do while in hiding. The hand soap is pink too, reminds her of that cheap powdery stuff they had at her high school. She’s spent way too much time hiding in bathrooms, huh? When she goes to dry her dripping hands, the dispenser's empty and the dryer isn’t working. She hits it in frustration and, here we go...

A red-hot spike of electrical agony shoots up her arm and into her chest and isn’t this just _perfect_.

Somewhere across town, Alan must’ve died.

*

The kitchen counters are soaked. Watermelons stand in triangular slices, halves, and wholes on every surface, dripping their sticky pink juice onto the floor. Ruth’s mopped up the worst of it, leaving the air stinking of watermelon and bleach. The smell makes Nadia want to puke.

Grabbing the edge of the counter, readying herself to clamber up and open the window above the sink, she doesn’t notice the chopping board and knife until it’s too late. They fall with a clatter, board upturning in mid-air, knife slamming point-down beside her foot. She made no attempt to move away from the falling blade, just watched. She lets things happen around her.

“Nadia?”

In a blink, the kitchen vanishes. Ferran squints at her.

“Everything all right?”

The neatly piled fruits on the deli’s shelves are blackened with mold. Fruit flies gather in a miniature swarm around something resembling a cantaloupe. Sitting amongst the decay is a shiny, unblemished watermelon reflecting the deli’s fluorescent lights on its striped skin.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

*

“What about trading places?”

Nadia shrugs. “Decent movie.”

“I mean, trying to recreate each other’s deaths. You jump off my roof. I’ll try to get hit by the same car that hit you.”

“What’s not to love about Eddie Murphy and eighties suits with fat lapels? It’s a hoot.”

Alan gives her that puppy-dog look that crosses into please-take-me-seriously territory.

Nadia sighs. “What would that accomplish?”

“No idea. But it’s something.”

Pulling out the list, she adds an addendum.

*

This time, they’re sitting the whole thing out. If the loop wants them dead, then it can get inventive, because they’re refusing to engage. It’s one of Alan’s bright ideas; number four on the list. If they survive long enough, there’s a chance as slim as cigarette paper that they’ll break the cycle.

They're on Alan’s bed. Fresh sheets. 100% cotton. They order in, avoid touching anything with an electrical current or sharp edge, keep their distance from anything that might decide to fall on them. If things stay put when the loop restarts, they’d kit this place out like a creche. Child-proof everything. You never consider how easy it is to die until the world is literally trying to kill you on a daily basis.

Nadia can talk the legs off an octopus when she's bored, and Alan doesn’t seem to mind. He’s the listening type. He listens to Nadia, and when her throat’s dry, he puts his headphones in and listens to something else.

His eyes are closed, fingers linked across his stomach, legs straight and together, reclining in peaceful yet ordered meditation. Those bullshit affirmations of his leak into the silence while Nadia scrolls through her phone.

_I am beautiful…_

_I am loved and deserve love…_

“I am a soulless husk,” Nadia mumbles to herself.

Spotify is the only app endless enough to entertain her these days. Well, this day. Once the emotionless and repetitious voice puts Alan to sleep, Nadia hits shuffle on a random playlist and lets it run through on the pillow beside her.

Now, if she were dreaming, in a coma, frothing away in a deep K-hole, or in the process of actually dying, could her mind really generate all this music she’s never heard? Nah. She’s clever, but not that clever.

A few songs in, a crack shoots up through the wall above the bed. Plaster dust rains down on them as the crack seeks out the straight edge where wall meets ceiling. The bed rattles.

Alan sits up sharply, blinking away the falling plaster. “Earthquake!” He turns to Nadia in panic. “Earthquake?”

As she grabs his hand, the ceiling caves in.

*

Okay. Okay, this is majorly fucked up. Either Alan has some weird cutlery, or something is seriously, _seriously_ wrong.

“Look,” she says, handing Alan the tablespoon she was about to eat her cereal with.

He waits for something to happen, then looks up at her.

“Subtle, isn’t it?” She starts pacing. “Look at it.”

Holding it up to his face, Alan squints into the spoon’s curve. He turns it and does the same with the back.

“What the...?”

“Yeah.” Nadia nods. “This is some _Matrix_ bullshit right here.”

Their reflections are gone. The spoon shows nothing besides what’s behind them. No distorted, bulbous mirror image of their frightened faces. Nadia grabs the remote and switches off the TV. Only Alan’s sofa and shelves reflect from its black rectangle.

Silence is all either of them can manage for a while. Nadia slumps beside Alan and lights up. Alan takes a selfie with his front-facing camera. It comes out normal, thank Jehovah. She asks him to check the bathroom mirror because it’s _his_ apartment, so _he_ should be the one to look in his own god damn mirror.

“Nothing,” he calls out, more resigned than freaked out.

When he’s back, he asks, “What does this mean?” As if she fucking knows.

Nadia shrugs. What does any of this mean at the end of the day? They’re still no closer to working that out.

Alan closes his black-out blinds.

“What’re you doing?”

“Testing something.”

In the darkness, he whips out his phone and turns on the flashlight. It illuminates the floor with a bright blue circle, and when he passes his hand back and forth across the LED...

“No shadows either,” he says, taking a deep breath.

Nadia needs another cigarette, and there’s already one in her mouth.

The flash lights Alan's face from below like he’s sat at a campfire telling ghost stories. “This is a sign.”

*

Pulling the retractable cord of her trusty belt lighter, Nadia lights up. Today, their reflections are back, and she’s feeling confident. They refer to yesterday as ‘the glitch.’

“So,” she begins, getting that scratchy first drag out of the way, “you know at the end of _Groundhog Day_, when Bill Murray helps out his fellow man?”

“Never seen it.” Alan’s devouring one of those cake slices he likes so much, individually packaged in the kind of plastic that destroys oceans. At least this one will never make it that far. He talks with his mouth full. One of the only bad habits he possesses. “I know what it's about.”

Nadia says, “Long story short: he gets to know everyone, finds out what bad shit happens to them, and helps them out. It gets him out of his loop.” At Alan’s non-response, she cuts to the point. “Let’s try it! Get out there and help people. Like, make 'em happy. Save a life or two.”

“Easier said than done.”

She pinches her cigarette between her teeth and points a just-you-wait finger at him, pulling her cell from her pocket. Tapping the news app, she filters to local results, scrolls, then hits the jackpot.

“Look. Some old lady got mugged on Crosby Street this morning.” She flashes the article towards him. “Fucker broke her cheekbone. Let’s stop that from happening, huh?”

“What if we can’t?”

“At least we tried.”

*

Death for them means a good day for the old lady, hopefully. They keep themselves in one piece and get to Crosby Street early. Traveling on foot is safer; the subway might decide to take them out for no good reason.

The sidewalk’s crowded: people on their way to work, tourists seeking places they can get 5% off with a Yep review. Throngs of faces. The backs of heads. And any one of these bodies could be a mugger’s.

Nadia has the news article's photo memorized. It wasn't great—blurry, the victim surrounded by paramedics with her face turned away from the camera. It'd been snapped by a passerby and uploaded to Twitter, their username credited in the caption. At least they know what she's wearing.

“Blue coat, black boots,” Nadia whispers. “Blue coat, black boots.” It quickly becomes a mantra.

Alan isn’t friends with subtlety. They’re perched on a wall close to where the picture was taken, and he's staring at people passing, giving them all a thorough once over. Most of them are talking into their phones or staring ahead, but those who notice him glare, uncomfortable with his scrutiny.

They haven’t exactly planned how to stop the mugging. Hopefully, it won’t get to that. They’ll see blue coat and black boots and strike up a conversation, make her less of a sitting duck. The mugger might pick someone else, but anything helps, right?

Ruth used to say that every time you do a good deed, you shine your light a little further into the darkness. Well, this was Nadia shining as brightly as she could. If this good deed had any effect on their predicament, she’d add more lights, pile up good deeds until she put Mother Teresa to shame.

There's a homeless guy sat hunched on the other side of the street, a hood fringed with dirty fur concealing his face, a cardboard sign Nadia can't make out leaning against his crossed legs. Why not get a head start on those good deeds?

After assuring Alan she’ll be fine crossing the street—she looks both ways these days—she approaches the recipient of her first kindness of the day. His sign says nothing. It’s an empty rectangle of scuffed cardboard. Well, she’s sold. Maybe her donation can go towards a Sharpie.

“Here,” she says, squatting, holding a handful of crumpled bills out to him. “You need this more than I do.”

He lifts his head slowly, and behind that ring of dirtied fur, there's nothing. No face. Just a black hole where a face should be. She drops the money and backs away.

A horn blares. Tires skid and screech. The cab barely misses her, but there’s no one at the wheel, no one behind the windscreen.

“Nadia?”

The crowds marching the sidewalk between her and Alan have no faces, only ovals of blank skin, their features filed off. She can’t breathe. Her legs feel weak beneath her, like they’re about to buckle. Alan rushes through the faceless bodies and grips her shoulders as the cold sidewalk hits her knees.

“I’m not crazy,” she tells him in a whisper.

The crowd parts around them like the red sea. Alan touches her forehead, then checks her pulse at her throat. In the distance, the woman with the blue coat and black boots steps into view. She turns and meets Nadia's gaze. She is the only one with a face, and as she shakes her head, almost apologetically, Nadia blacks out.

*

Long, carrot-colored curls drop into the ivory basin until it overflows like something from a horror flick. Alan’s trimmer buzzes as it eats into her temple, a stripe in its wake the color of her scalp. It leaves a fine coating of tiny pointed hairs you could strike a match off.

She’s always wanted to do this. Her so-called pride and glory is, in fact, something she hides behind. It’s why she let Horse cut it all that time ago. What does it matter now?

Alan’s perfectly clean razor and brand-new bottle of shaving foam sort out those sharp little hairs until her head is bowling ball smooth. And, yeah, it looks dreadful to be honest, but fuck, that was cathartic. Britney Spears knew what was up.

“Oh,” Alan says, stopping dead in his tracks when he returns from the deli, almost dropping his armful of ramen and Haribo. “Bold.”

“Bald,” Nadia corrects, pausing the level of _Ariadne_ she still can’t complete. “And your razor’s as blunt as my wit now, by the way.”

“I wouldn’t worry about the razor.” A smile quirks on his lips before spreading across his face.

Nadia raises an eyebrow. “Go on. You can say it.”

“Wish I could say the same about your wit.” He enjoyed saying that.

“Cunt.”

*

“You seeing this?”

Alan pulls over when it's safe. He's driven their rental car for four hours and hasn't yet allowed his attention to wander for a second. Number eight on the list—getting as far from New York as they possibly can—is going well so far; he doesn't want to change that by taking his eyes off the road.

“Seeing what?”

Nadia points at the paper map they picked up from the last gas station, traces a line of ink with her fingertip—the road they're following. It fades before their eyes, like the paper's been sun-bleached, until it disappears completely.

“Told you,” Nadia says proudly. “Didn’t I tell you?” Number eight was her idea. If they are in a simulated world, whoever's writing the code to trap them here can't keep up if they travel outside their usual limitations.

“What should we do?”

The map is a white square of paper now, so she tosses it out the window. “Keep driving.”

*

They park on Main Street in a nowhere town neither of them had heard of before reading the sign pointing off Route 6. It’s settled in the middle of a wooded valley, the buildings old yet well cared for. Theirs will be a short visit to stretch their legs and grab something to eat. They don't have a final destination in mind, so they can stay for as long or as short a while as they like.

A neon open sign flickers in the window of a bistro with metal chairs outside, menus weighted down with ketchup bottles. Nadia's stomach rumbles.

“I'm just gonna make myself more comfortable,” Alan says, 'cause 'take a piss' is too crude for him, apparently.

He rushes inside while Nadia sits browsing the menu. She wants the maple cheddar fries.

Across the street, a courthouse stands tall and proud on an expanse of green. Its clock tower bell rings out once, informing the townsfolk that it's 1.00PM. A couple walking a terrier wave to an old man on a bench on the courthouse's lawn. He waves back and throws a chunk of his sandwich to the pigeons gathered around his feet.

After ten minutes, a middle-aged waitress with soft green eyes and a crochet cardigan takes Nadia's order. Nadia requests two lots of the maple cheddar fries and doesn't mention that the extra portion is for a friend.

Another five minutes pass according to the courthouse clock. Nadia whips out her cell, ready to text Alan and ask him if he's fallen in, but she has no signal.

When the waitress delivers the fries in mismatched bowls, Nadia asks if she's seen Alan emerge from the gent’s at all.

“Tall,” Nadia says, holding her hand above her head. “Great posture, dresses like a dad who got lost in the Gap?”

“You're our only customer as far as I'm aware, ma'am.”

A pigeon lands beside Nadia's feet when she starts eating. She'll give Alan another five minutes before embarrassing him by tracking him down. He's not dead because she's alive and enjoying her fries. She knows that much.

As she shoos the pigeon away with her foot, it doesn't jump out of the way as expected. She strikes it accidentally and gasps, apologizing to it as it skids across the sidewalk, tumbles off the curb and rolls under a parked car like it's stuffed or something. It doesn't flap or flee, so she gets up to check on it, kneeling to peer beneath the car. There's nothing there, but on the other side, four white paws trot along and come to a halt. The cat ducks to look at her, showing its face.

What the—

“Oatmeal?”

It's him. She's certain of it. Jumping up to go fetch him out of the road, she knocks into someone behind her.

“Hey lady, watch out!”

Nadia’s on Alan's street in New York, horns blaring in morning traffic, tower blocks reaching up into the sky around her. Oatmeal's gone, and so is rural Pennsylvania.

“Morning,” Alan says behind her with his usual perky tone. “Ready to go?”

“Huh?”

His face drops when she turns to face him, her mouth open and eyes wide.

“The rental place?” Alan tries. “Number eight, remember?”

Nadia just blinks at him. She can still taste the maple fries.

*

“We're never getting out of this, are we?”

Nadia hates crying. She doesn't cry, and if someone's crying around her, her only method of assistance is cracking jokes until they stop. But it's gotten so bad that crying is all she can do, hugging her knees on the square of floor where Alan's sofa once stood before the loops started degrading.

“They're just fucking with us now.” She sucks in a shaking breath, curses when a salty tear drips into her mouth. “We're rats in a cage.”

Alan sits beside her, then pulls her against his chest and holds her.

She clings to him. “If you disappear too, that’s it, I’m done. I don’t know if I can do this alone.”

Almost everything in their apartments has vanished. Almost everything in the city has too. They've exhausted the list, but even if they hadn't, they'd have to venture out into an eerily bare New York to find a pen and some paper to make another copy. The city is a nightmare like this, an empty labyrinth for them to run around in.

“I'm not going anywhere,” Alan whispers, voice uncertain. A curl clings to Nadia's wet cheek as he strokes her hair back from her face. “We'll be okay. We're gonna get home.”


End file.
